5/4/2023 0 Comments In the crosshairsReports also indicated that the government sent five planes – which were coincidentally bought from Ukraine in 2001 – back to Kyiv. Almost all of North Macedonia’s tanks and some combat vehicles were sent to Ukraine. Why would Russia target North Macedonia, a country of no more than two million people with a small army? The country is a member of NATO, but also one of the main contributors per capita in terms of military hardware and assistance to Ukraine since the start of the war. This is largely due to the fact that the state IT and security infrastructure is underdeveloped and the attacks come from a foreign country which is bent on creating chaos, especially in the Western Balkans, a fertile ground for disruption. The problem for North Macedonia in this regard is that even though the culprit is clear, there is little the country can do to prevent these hybrid attacks. The ending of the message was very clear: ‘We can continue to do this or you can lift the sanctions.’ This was when some politicians and experts went public in recognizing the hybrid attack and pointed the finger at Moscow. In one of the emails the sender reportedly claimed that there were bombs in 23 locations and that threats would keep coming every day. On the same day, a bomb threat was even reported in one of the biggest hotels in Skopje ahead of a public event with the prime minister, Dimitar Kovachevski, and several members of his government. The peak came when in one day there were almost 50 reported bomb threats in schools, shopping centres, a TV station, the foreign ministry, and most notably the Skopje international airport, causing the entire capital to grind to a halt. The situation became more serious when, apart from high schools, bomb threats were made in primary schools and shopping centres. Some of those arrested were pursuing nothing more than publicity stunts, while some were just poor imitators. There were even several arrests by the police. The most fortunate development is that all of the reported bomb threats turned out to be hoaxes. In the current political situation in North Macedonia, every moment of this saga is used for political gain in one way or another. Journalists raised the issue of whether it was some kind of hybrid attack, but even then the politicians did not admit publicly that Russia was behind these events. Schools were evacuated, parents were angry, and the capital Skopje was blocked by police and bomb squads, each time discovering that the threats were false. Almost everyone believed that it was probably the work of a teenager who was trying to avoid going to school.ĭay by day, however, the threats continued. At the same time, the threats were not taken seriously. Emails launching the alarm were sent via Proton Mail (an anonymous email service) and no one claimed responsibility. Two days later there were seven bomb threats in several high schools. It all started in October 2022 with a bomb threat in one high school, something that does not regularly happen in North Macedonia. This act was unfortunately not considered too serious by the government or the Macedonian population. The youngest NATO member, for the past several months especially, has faced textbook hybrid attacks intended to create fear, panic and distrust in state institutions.Įver since the start of the war in Ukraine and the declared support of the Macedonian leadership for Kyiv, the country found itself on the Kremlin’s ‘naughty’ list, deemed by the Russian leadership as unfriendly. For North Macedonia, a small country in the middle of the Western Balkans, prices are not the only problem. In Europe it is in the rising electricity and utility bills. In Kherson, Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia the cost is in human lives. Supporting democracy does not come cheap, but then again freedom is also costly.
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